Soccer Players for Gay Marriage?

With four weeks until Election Day four states have gay marriage on the ballot, and pro athletes continue to make headlines with their views on the subject.

Early last month Baltimore Raven Brendon Ayanbadejo took part in a video for Marylanders for Marriage Equality, which drew fire from Maryland Delegate Emmett Burns. Burns called upon the team to prohibit Ayanbadejo from expressing his views on gay marriage.

Enter Chris Kluwe of the Minnesota Vikings (another state with gay marriage on the ballot November 6). He took to the internet to pen an expletive-laced blog post in Ayanbadejo’s defense and has since challenged a conservative state representative to a debate and appeared on the cover of Out Magazine.

With so many soccer players who have shown support for the LGBT community, where are the ones vocal about gay marriage like Ayanbadejo and Kluwe?

The Chicago Fire has taken a lead on this front in a state where gay marriage is still a legislative issue. They started a formal partnership with Equality Illinois this summer, staffers marched in the Chicago Pride Parade, and team members Dan Gargan and Jay Nolly made an appearance at an Equality Illinois event, proudly posing with a pro-gay marriage t-shirt.

But there’s just something special and more powerful when someone who has a connection to one of the four states deciding gay marriage–Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington–speaks out on the topic of the ballot initiatives.

I admit that I am a bit jealous of NFL fans on this front. But thankfully we have some friends in some of those four states.

There are our allies from the Sounders, where we want folks to vote yes on R74: Andrew Duran, David Estrada, Brad Evans, Adam Johansson, Eddie Johnson, Babayele Sodade and Andrew Weber.

DC United is adjacent to Maryland, where folks should vote yes on Question 6 and our allies are Mike Chabala, Bill Hamid, Chris Pontius, Robbie Russell, Ethan White, and Josh Wolff.

LA’s A.J. DeLaGarza is also from Maryland and Sounders favorite Roger Levesque is from Maine,

Hopefully LGBT-friendly NFL pros won’t be the only ones speaking out for gay marriage this election season.

You can find out more about the four gay marriage ballot initiatives this year at thefour2012.com.